Fall 2008

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Lecture 1 of 3

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 -- 5:15Ð6:45 P.M. Engineering 189
"Should We Abolish the Criminal Law?"
David D. Friedman, Department of Economics and School of Law,
Santa Clara University

We have two different legal systems, criminal law and tort
law, which do
essentially the same thing in different ways. Do we need
both? Professor
Friedman examines the redundancy in our legal infrastructure
and the role of
the state in explaining the origin of these often parallel
systems.
Professor Friedman is the author of numerous books including
an intermediate
price theory text that went through two editions, plus an
adaptation for the
general public, entitled Hidden Order: The Economics of
Everyday Life.
Professor Friedman is also the author of one of the most
innovative law and
economics texts, Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with
Law and Why It
Matters. His articles and reviews have appeared in the
Journal of Economic
History, the Independent Review, the Texas Law Review, the
International
Philosophical Quarterly, and numerous other publications.

Lecture 2 of 3

Thursday, October 16, 2008 -- 5:15Ð6:45 P.M. Martin Luther King Library, Room 225
"Should We Legalize Markets in Human Kidneys?"
James S. Taylor, Department of Philosophy, The College of New
Jersey

Each year, over 4,000 people in the U.S. die waiting for a
kidney
transplant. Demand for kidneys has increased five-fold since
1988 when data
was first collected. Supply, however, has only inched up
with much of the
increase coming from living kidney donors. The kidney
shortage is worldwide
and will only get worse. Demand is expected to grow rapidly
fueled by an
aging population with diabetes. In January 2008, Britain's
Prime Minister
Gordon Brown, suggested that every British citizen be
automatically regarded
as an organ donor through a "presumed consent"policy.
Presumed consent for
organ donation already exists in Spain and was recently
adopted in India for
cornea transplants. Government control over your organs is
only one way to
address the problem. Professor of Philosophy James Taylor
proposes an
alternative solution to the shortage: legalize the sale of
body parts.
Taylor will briefly outline the positive argument for
legalizing a market in
human kidneys, and will then consider and rebut the most
prominent ethical
objections.

James Stacey Taylor teaches philosophy at The College of New
Jersey. He is
the author of Stakes and Kidneys: Why markets in human body
parts are
morally imperative (Ashgate, 2005) and the editor of
Personal Autonomy: New
essays (Cambridge, 2005). He has written numerous articles
on autonomy,
applied ethics, and the metaphysics of death.